A week tomorrow the first workout of the CrossFit Open will be announced. Whilst we can all speculate about what movements will or won’t be included, none of us, apart from Castro, can be sure about what will be involved in the 5 workouts released across 5 weeks.

The one thing I CAN say with certainty is people are going to get nervous, and probably to some extent, stressed out about the event/process. Whether it’s someone entering their first Open, a seasoned competitor or someone returning from injury, they’re all going to think, and probably worry (at least to some extent) about how they’ll do, whether their training has helped them improve and/or whether their injury has healed sufficiently.

Being a natural born worrier (although my Mother said my first word was ‘mess’, I’m increasingly of the view that it may very well have been ‘stress’ (although mess is definitely apt too!)), I routinely try to find ways and strategies to manage my worries. For me, the most effective method to date is ‘what’s the worst case scenario(s)?’. If I identify this/these and am able to come up with solutions to address the scenario or worry, it’s no longer a big worry.

So, in the context of The Open, what happens if you don’t do as well as expected or hoped? Your pride may (at least initially) take a bit of a hit, but if for example your DUs let you down, you can work on them to be better. Same thing with pretty much all of the movements. Engine not as great as you’d hoped? Adjust your training to fix it.

Suppose you do ‘really badly'(whatever that means to you)? For some, there may be an aspect of embarrassment, and concern over what others will think of their results or performance. Ok, totally understandable, but, in the grand scheme of things, does it REALLY matter? This is exercising; competitive exercising. It should ultimately be fun and enjoyable, if not, what’s the point? That’s not to say you won’t find aspects of The Open scary and challenging (if you don’t, you’re probably not giving it your all), but you shouldn’t be scared, worried or stressed out about the result.

I’m convinced the key to enjoying The Open is giving the workouts your best effort, enjoying the challenges presented and having fun with your friends. You can spend all sorts of time and energy worrying about the impact a few more reps will have on your place on the leaderboard, or, you can keep it simple and focus on effort, enjoyment and fun. The choice is yours.